


couldn't see you coming

by queerofcups



Series: love love love (love love) [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9573443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: There is a version of their life where it doesn’t work out.





	

Sometimes, they fight. It happens less often now, both of them settling into a life inextricable from each other. But it happens. Mostly in winter, when they tuck themselves into each other for warmth and light. When it does, Phil can’t help but imagine.

There is a version of their life where it doesn’t work out. Where Phil decides Dan is too young to bother with. Where Dan decides Phil comes with too much baggage; too many people whispering about Dan riding curtails. There is a version where they try (they try youtube, they try being together, they try being friends) and it just doesn’t click. There is a universe where they’re just an unanswered comment, an unsent message, a train ride that never happened. Just a missed connection that neither of them think about in a year’s time.

Phil sleeps in his own bed sometimes, imagines the cold space beside him as normal, is all he’ll ever have. He imagines pushing Dan too far, too hard, too fast. Sometimes, he still sleeps soundly, satisfied with the life he could have had, quieter and slower. He could have been a weatherman.

Those nights, Dan comes to him in his dreams. It’s usually Dan as he was when they first met. Phil feels the burn of want less than he did years ago. Now, he sees Dan’s birdboned chest, the way he hides behind loudness and clumsy sexuality like he’s saying _notice this, don’t notice me_. This Dan curls under the pressure Phil puts on him, flattened by the weight of millions of eyes watching them, sharp words and Phil’s own expectations. This Dan doesn’t last the year, flies away on winter wind and an apology that it’s just too hard, he can’t be what Phil wants.

This isn’t the Dan that slips into his bed long after midnight, wakes him with fingers cold and full of apology. This Dan presses words to his skin, promises to be better, push back harder. This is the Dan he’s grown with, pressed thin-stretched skin together, wrote til their fingers ached, poured years of life together into a book, the Dan that wears a silver ring on a chain around his neck. The Dan he couldn’t see coming.

_You can’t hate me_ , he says, wrapping his arms around Phil’s waist, pressing his face into Phil’s shoulder. He’s solid, skin pale in the darkness of the room, filling up all of Phil’s sight.

It’s something he’s said for years, demanded love and nothing more from Phil; as if he doesn’t know Phil couldn’t hate him if he tried. It’s the other side of the _No,_ _I love you,_ Phil presses into his hair. There are people Phil hates that he loved once, there are people he doesn’t think of at all. He can’t imagine Dan ever being one of them.

Sometimes, Dan sends him old pictures of them, late at night when Phil’s gone to sleep; something for him to find in the light of cold mornings.  Sometimes it’s the ones that float around the internet that all the eyes rove over, trying to find a name for what they see. Mostly, it’s the private ones, limbs tangled together, hands on skin; proprietary, mouths close(d). _This is when I fell for you_ , Dan says about all of them. This and this and this, here and here and here. It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope, finding the moment where Dan fell, over and over again. Phil believes him every time.

**Author's Note:**

> title from bon iver's 'skinny love' but also strongly influenced by frank ocean's ivy.   
> of course, this is fake.
> 
> i've not written much in this style, so let me know if you're into it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] couldn't see you coming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11583720) by [queerofcups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups)




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